This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.
U-Carmen(U-Carmen eKhayelitsha)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
South Africa · 2005
Rated PG-13 · 2h 2m
Director Mark Dornford-May
Starring Pauline Malefane, Andile Tshoni, Lungelwa Blou, Zweilungile Sidloyi
Genre Music, Drama
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Based on Georges Bizet's 19th-century opera and set in a modern South African township, this film explores issues of fame and wealth, the position of a strong and independently minded woman in a very masculine society and, perhaps most importantly, the incomprehensible attraction between abuser and victim.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Riveting update of George Bizet's "Carmen."
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
Brilliantly sung by an extremely talented lyric theater company in Cape Town called Dimpho Di Kopane. Whether this all works will be a matter of opinion -- mine is that it does not -- but the experiment is fascinating.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
It's vivid evidence that great music and stories transcend time and place.
A vivacious film that is a treat for eyes and ears.
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